


Eikonoklastēs

by wowbright



Series: Glee Season 6 Episode Reactions [18]
Category: Glee
Genre: Episode: s06e08 A Wedding, Fluff, Honeymoon, M/M, Marriage, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Relationship(s), Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3537911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine tries to explain to his therapist why marrying Kurt wasn’t a rash move. Reaction fic to Glee 6.08, “A Wedding.” This fic is <a href="http://wowbright.tumblr.com/post/113538913585/fic-eikonoklastes-blaine-kurt">also on tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eikonoklastēs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whisperyvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperyvoices/gifts), [Januarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Januarium/gifts).



> My headcanon says that Kurt and Blaine were back in Lima for a couple days before the events of 6.10 “The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester” transpired. And “profiterole” is a fancy word for “cream puff.” Also, Dr. Joyce is a recurring character in my s6 fic. Search her AO3 tag for more or read about her [on tumblr](http://wowbright.tumblr.com/tagged/dr.-joyce). Thanks to corinna and nachochang for betaing, and lalalenii for the encouragement!

Kurt and Blaine leave for their honeymoon three days after the wedding. They both have therapist appointments scheduled for later in the week, but if there was ever a good excuse to cancel, surely this is it.

Blaine calls Dr. Joyce’s office while he and Kurt wait for their plane to take off. He tells the receptionist that he had to go out of town on short notice – no, nothing’s wrong; in fact, a wonderful opportunity came up – and could he reschedule?

He enters the new appointment into his phone calendar and turns to Kurt with a smile. “I have no obligations for the next ten days but you.”

Kurt smirks and reaches for Blaine’s hand across the armrest. “I’m an obligation now, is that it?”

“My lucky ball and chain,” Blaine says. He’s so happy his face is getting sore from all the grinning.

Kurt leans in close enough to kiss Blaine’s cheek, but stops just short of contact. The hair on Blaine’s skin stands on end at the spot that Kurt’s lips are almost touching. “I’m more used to ribbons and ropes,” Kurt whispers. Blaine has to strain to hear it over the airplane’s electric thrum. “But I’m willing to try chains as a wedding gift to you.”

Blaine goes hard for the dozenth time today since they woke up in bed together. It’s going to be a long flight to New England.

*

Provincetown is wonderful. Blaine feels like they’re nestled in a cocoon, protected from the outside world. They don’t argue, they have sex every day and more, and there are so many _I love you_ s they couldn’t keep count of them if they tried. Blaine knows returning to the real world will come with challenges, but by the end of their retreat, he feel strong enough to face them.

*

Blaine’s appointment is for the day after they get back to Lima. Blaine regrets scheduling it so soon. He doesn’t have to return to work for a few days, and he wants to extend their honeymoon until the last moment, staying in Kurt’s bed all day except to make meals, pretending that they’re not in Lima at all. At least Burt and Carole are in D.C. and Blaine can walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night without putting his clothes back on.

“Why did you let me make my appointment for today?” Blaine grumbles as he flattens down his hair in the mirror. Kurt is standing beside him and looking at Blaine with a level of unbridled adoration that Blaine still hasn’t gotten used to over the weeks they’ve been back together. Blaine’s not sure he’ll ever be used to it.

Kurt rubs the small of Blaine’s back. “I don’t remember you asking my opinion about that,” Kurt says without a hint of bite. “Anyway, you’ll only be gone for a couple hours. And maybe it’s a good thing. A little alone time is always good for me.”

“True,” Blaine says, turning away from the mirror to face Kurt directly. “And I _do_ have a lot to catch up on with Dr. Joyce.”

“Tell me about it.” Kurt reaches up to Blaine’s throat and adjusts his bowtie a little more snugly, just the way Blaine likes. “I have no idea where I’m going to start when I talk to my therapist. I’m sure he’ll be like, ‘Kurt, when I told you to get more comfortable with expressing your feelings, I didn’t mean you should get _that_ comfortable.’”

Blaine doesn’t want to think at all about how Dr. Joyce will react, so he changes the subject. “And I can ask her about couples counseling, if you’re still interested in that.”

“Of course I am,” Kurt says with a tender smile. “You’re the most important person in the world to me. I want to learn how to speak your language.”

Blaine’s heart feels ready to burst. “I want to learn how to speak yours, too.”

*

Dr. Joyce gets this funny sort of expression on her face when Blaine sits down in his chair. Confused? She glances down at her notes as if maybe she’s forgotten something.

Blaine wonders if she’s having a bad day. “Are you okay?” he asks.

The light comes back to her eyes. She laughs. “I think I’m the one who’s supposed to ask that question around here.”

Blaine shrugs. “Everyone is human.”

She clears her throat. Her eyes move toward the ring on his left hand. He feels the gaze like a weight against his finger, almost as solid as the platinum band. He rubs his thumb against the metal and smiles instinctively. It’s like having Kurt’s love with him wherever he goes. But her gaze makes it feel heavy, like it shouldn’t be there.

“To be honest,” she says, “your ring caught me by surprise, especially after our last conversation. I’m curious to hear the story behind it. Does it mean that you and Dave are engaged?”

Oh. _Oh._ Blaine had completely forgotten. The last time he saw Dr. Joyce, he was trying to figure out whether to stay with Dave.

It seems like eons ago.

“Um, no,” Blaine says. He looks down at his ring. “It’s Kurt. We got – ” Just thinking about it makes his smile stretch to his ears. He tries to contain it, because he doesn’t want to look as deranged as Dr. Joyce probably thinks he is right now. “Kurt and I got married.”

“Oh.” Dr. Joyce takes a deep breath and leans back in her chair. “Why don’t you tell me more about that.”

Everything feels touch-and-go for the next few minutes, like maybe their carefully built therapeutic relationship is about to collapse like a house of cards. As Blaine starts to speak, he becomes more and more aware of how strange all this must sound to someone who doesn’t live inside his own head – and especially to Dr. Joyce, whose training is to look for the strange and hone in on it like a hawk.

Blaine’s not sure what a hawk looks like when it’s about to dive in on its prey, but he imagines it’s a lot like Dr. Joyce looks right now: eyes narrowed and alert, neck craning forward, head tilted slightly to the side to better hear the prey’s scurrying. So of course Blaine is suddenly at a loss for words to explain why getting married on absolutely no notice seemed like the best idea in the world. He _still_ thinks it’s the best idea in the world. But it’s hard to convey his bone-deep certainty about it when Dr. Joyce is looking at him like … well, like _that_.

He knows what she’s thinking. He’d thought it, too, when Brittany first brought the idea up. He’d said it himself:

 _“This is crazy. This is crazy._ _But –”_

_“But what?” Kurt said._

_Blaine didn’t say anything for a moment. He needed to stop and listen for the deep, still voice inside himself  – the one that never failed to guide Blaine in the right direction. The one Dr. Joyce had taught him to hear._

_Blaine took a deep breath. “No. It’s not crazy. Crazy was fighting with you over toothpaste on towels instead of going to a couples counselor and learning to argue with you like a grown man. Crazy was saying I would never forgive you. Crazy was trying to get over you when I knew you were – you are – the only person I’ll ever love. Marrying you, Kurt, whether it’s today or tomorrow or years from now – it’s the wisest thing I’ll ever do. To love you and to let you love me, to stick with you when things are bad and when they’re good. That’s what I want to do.”_

_Something happened in Kurt’s face as Blaine spoke, the look of panic transforming into something soft and self-assured. His eyes were focused, his shoulders loose. He squeezed back at Blaine’s hands. “That’s what I want, too. More than you’ll ever know.”_

_Blaine laughed. “I might have some idea.”_

_Kurt smiled. It was a new kind of smile: not the naive smile of their early relationship, or the sad, regret-tinged one that evolved later. This one was open and innocent, but also wise – full of the knowledge of what love was and could be – and yet there was nothing pained about it. “Blaine,” Kurt said. “You’re the love of my life. Will you marry me?”_

_The only sane answer to that question was ‘yes.’_

And Blaine would tell Dr. Joyce just that, explain just how _uncrazy_ marrying Kurt was – but he can’t. Not when she’s looking at him with so much suspicion, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

So Blaine stops in the middle of the story and looks Dr. Joyce in the eye. “Are you listening to me?” he says. It’s a question he’s never had to ask her before. She’s always been one hundred percent present with him, one hundred percent open, and one hundred percent someone he would trust with his life. _Has_ trusted with his life. But right now – she’s not looking at him like he’s a person whose heart she’s gotten to know backward and forward. She’s looking at him like he’s a diagnosis.

“I’m listening,” she says. “You were just telling me how Brittany wanted you two to get married, so –”

“No,” Blaine says abruptly, surprised at the agitation in his voice. “I was just telling you how _I_ wanted to marry _Kurt._ How _Kurt_ wanted to marry _me._ What Brittany wanted is a side note.”

“Okay,” Dr. Joyce says slowly. She’s still giving him that look.

“There’s something else you’re not saying.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your story,” Dr. Joyce says.

“Interrupt it. I know what you’re thinking, anyway.”

“Ah,” she says. “And what’s that?”

“That I’m crazy.”

Dr. Joyce puts down her pencil, uncrosses and recrosses her legs. “Blaine,” she says, “you know I don’t like that word.”

“Would you prefer ‘manic’?”

She sighs. “You have to understand what this looks like to someone who’s not you.”

Blaine rubs his eyes with the heels of his hand. “I _do_ understand. I almost said ‘no’ because of that. Because it didn’t seem like something a sane person would do. I told Brittany it was crazy. I told _Kurt_ it was crazy. But –”

“But what?”

“But then I stopped and really thought about it. About how much I love Kurt, and how much we’ve both changed, and … I felt ready to start my life with him. And there wasn’t anything weird or out-of-control about it. It wasn’t like when I proposed to him. It didn’t feel urgent, like I had to do it right then or I would die. I didn’t feel like, if I gave up this chance, I’d be giving up any chance at a future with him. I felt … at peace. I knew that if he didn’t want to get married right then, I’d be okay. _We’d_ be okay. There would be another chance in the future.” Blaine stops and looks up at Dr. Joyce. Something has shifted in her expression. Her eyes are more relaxed, her shoulders no longer ready to pounce. She’s starting to see Blaine clearly again.

He goes on. “Honestly, it felt like one of the least impulsive decisions I’ve ever made. Like everything Kurt and I have been through, my relationship with Dave, everything I’ve worked on with you – like all of it had prepared me for that moment. It got me to a place where I could say ‘yes’ and really know what that meant. And maybe to the rest of the world it would look more thought-through if we’d waited longer. But we had the chance right then, so … why not? I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Saying ‘no’ – I would have been saying ‘no’ to my heart.”

Dr. Joyce nods. “When you put it that way, it sounds very reasonable.”

“That’s because it is.” Blaine realizes he might still be on shaky footing with her, and he doesn’t want to make it worse. But he’s not going to give up his own truth for anyone – not even for the person who helped him find it in the first place.

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “You were right about what I was thinking. I started jumping to conclusions before I heard the whole story. That’s not fair to you, Blaine, and it’s not what I’m here to do. My first responsibility to you is to listen. So let me try to do that for real this time. If you could start from where we left off at our last appointment, when you were still with Dave – I think that would help me to understand.”

Dr. Joyce looks at Blaine and waits for him to answer. There’s something almost contrite in her manner. Her hands are folded together in her lap in a way that reminds him of a child praying.

It’s weird to see her like this, as a person who can make mistakes. But there’s something refreshing about it, too. It occurs to Blaine for the first time that he’s never seen her clearly, either. He’s idolized her as the voice of reason and wisdom, as someone whose opinion was valuable above all others. He used to do that with Kurt, too – put him on a pedestal and then quiver at the slightest sign of disapproval.

But like Kurt, Dr. Joyce is also just a flesh-and-blood human being.

Blaine has nothing to be afraid of.

So he starts telling her the story from the beginning, this time without fear.

They’re on firm ground by the end of his story. “The thing that struck me most as you were talking, Blaine, is how good you’ve become at listening yourself,” Dr. Joyce says. “You’re learning how to make decisions that are right for you. It can be really hard to do that, and to stand up to people who don’t agree with you. You should be proud of yourself.”

Blaine can’t help but duck his head and blush a little. Even if Dr. Joyce isn’t as perfect as he once thought she was, he still respects her opinion. “Thank you.”

“The only person you have to thank is yourself,” she says. “You did the work.”

He looks her in the eye. “And you helped get me there.”

Before he leaves, he asks her for references to couples counselors. “But I thought you guys are doing okay now?” she says, surprised.

“We’re doing great,” Blaine says. “But we still need to get better at communicating with each other. We don’t want to wait for another crisis to happen to deal with it.”

She smiles. “I wish all my clients were like you.”

Blaine can’t help it if the compliment goes to his head.

*

“How was your appointment?” Kurt asks when Blaine gets home.

Blaine pulls a stool up the kitchen island, where Kurt is whipping up cream for profiteroles he just removed from the oven.

“Intense,” Blaine said. “But good.”

“Yeah?” Kurt sets the whisk against the edge of the bowl and looks at Blaine, ready to listen.

“Yeah,” Blaine says. It’s so strange how much his relationship with Kurt has changed since the last go-round. Blaine knows that when they’re both back at work, they’ll slip into some of their old habits. Kurt won’t _always_ stop what he’s doing to look at Blaine like whatever he’s about to say is the most fascinating thing in the world. But still, the fact that they can have a real conversation at all? They’re miles ahead of where they used to be.

“Tell me,” Kurt says. He sticks a finger in the almost-but-not-quite bowl of whipped cream and silently offers it to Blaine.

Blaine licks it off, enjoying the taste of sugar and butterfat combined with Kurt’s skin.

“That tickles,” Kurt says with a giggle, and pulls his hand away.

The whipped cream melts on Blaine’s tongue. He sighs, satisfied and exhausted. “I learned today that nobody is perfect.”

“Oh? I thought you already knew that.” Kurt tilts his head sideways as he smiles. “‘Works in progress’ and all.”

Blaine shrugs. “I thought I did, too. I guess I needed a reminder.”

“Mmmm,” Kurt says, licking whipped cream off his own finger. “Well, now that we’re married, I’m happy to remind you of that every day, with all my perfectly imperfect ways.” He gives Blaine a flirtatious wink.

Blaine reaches across the countertop, his palm open, gesturing for Kurt’s hand. Kurt’s fingers slip into it effortlessly, the cool metal of his wedding ring pressing against Blaine’s skin. “I’m so glad I married you,” Blaine says. “It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Kurt’s smile stretches wider. His shoulders are loose and relaxed, his whole body unencumbered. “Funny,” Kurt says. “That’s how I feel about my decision to marry you.”


End file.
